Preparing to install KVM Platform Agent

Before installing Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) Platform Agent on a managed X-Architecture compute node running Linux, ensure that your system meets all the applicable requirements.

About this task

Review the following information and complete the necessary steps to prepare your system for installation:

Procedure

Ensure that your system meets the following hardware and software requirements for installation:

System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) 2.1 or later is required for all X-Architecture compute nodes in an IBM® Flex System Manager environment.

Table 1. IBM Flex System Manager Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) Platform Agent for Linux on X-Architecture compute nodes: Minimum hardware requirements
Requirements	Platform Agent
Processor speed	Processor must support Intel VT-x or AMD-V virtualization technologies
Memory (RAM)	1 GB

The following table provides information about disk storage requirements for installing KVM Platform Agent on X-Architecture compute nodes running Linux.

Table 2. Disk storage requirements for installing KVM Platform Agent on systems that are running Linux on x86-64
File system	Disk space required Platform Agent
/var	110 MB
/tmp (only if using self-extracting script)	50 KB
/opt	101 MB

Note: The space in /tmp is only required during the installation and is freed after the installation is complete.

Ensure that IBM Flex System Manager is installed and that VMControl is activated.
Ensure that a Red Hat Enterprise Linux version , 6.2, 6.3, or 6.4, 6.5, 6.6 and 7.0 host is set up and available. During installation, select KVM instead of Xen.
Ensure that KVM is installed and configured.

Ensure that the required RPMs are installed.

Note: The Platform Agent installer checks for all of the RPMs and notifies you of any that are missing.

Table 3. Required RPMs
Installation scenario		Required RPMs
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 6.2	64-bit	`libconfig.x86_64 # required for libvirt-cim as of libvirt-cim-0.5.14-1 libsysfs.x86_64 libsysfs.i686 libicu.x86_64 lm_sensors-libs # not strictly required but gets pulled in as a dependency for other packages net-snmp.x86_64 net-snmp-libs.x86_64 redhat-lsb.x86_64`
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 6.3	64-bit	`libconfig.x86_64 # required for libvirt-cim as of libvirt-cim-0.5.14-1 libsysfs.x86_64 libsysfs.i686 libicu.x86_64 lm_sensors-libs # not strictly required but gets pulled in as a dependency for other packages net-snmp.x86_64 net-snmp-libs.x86_64 redhat-lsb.x86_64`
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 6.4	64-bit	`libconfig.x86_64 # required for libvirt-cim as of libvirt-cim-0.5.14-1 libsysfs.x86_64 libsysfs.i686 libicu.x86_64 lm_sensors-libs # not strictly required but gets pulled in as a dependency for other packages net-snmp.x86_64 net-snmp-libs.x86_64 redhat-lsb.x86_64`
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 6.5	64-bit	`libconfig.x86_64 # required for libvirt-cim as of libvirt-cim-0.5.14-1 libsysfs.x86_64 libsysfs.i686 libicu.x86_64 lm_sensors-libs # not strictly required but gets pulled in as a dependency for other packages net-snmp.x86_64 net-snmp-libs.x86_64 redhat-lsb.x86_64`
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 6.6	64-bit	`libconfig.x86_64 # required for libvirt-cim as of libvirt-cim-0.5.14-1 libsysfs.x86_64 libsysfs.i686 libicu.x86_64 lm_sensors-libs # not strictly required but gets pulled in as a dependency for other packages net-snmp.x86_64 net-snmp-libs.x86_64 redhat-lsb.x86_64`
Red Hat Enterprise Linux, version 7.0	64-bit	`libconfig.x86_64 # required for libvirt-cim as of libvirt-cim-0.5.14-1 libsysfs.x86_64 libsysfs.i686 libicu.x86_64 lm_sensors-libs # not strictly required but gets pulled in as a dependency for other packages net-snmp.x86_64 net-snmp-libs.x86_64 redhat-lsb.x86_64`

Systems with service processors: Install the supporting device drivers and mapping layers, if they are not already installed. See "Preparing to manage service processors with IBM Flex System Manager" for information about these drivers and mapping layers.
If you want to use the Remote Session task on the managed system, make sure that the package that contains telnetd daemon is installed and configured.
To enable host failover processing, install and configure the Watchdog process on your RHEL 6 compute node. Install the Watchdog package from the RHEL 6 distribution and configure as prescribed in these links.
Note: The steps listed in the first link still apply to RHEL 6, although the title states RHEL 5.